


The Whole of the Universe

by norgbelulah



Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Imprisonment, M/M, Orphans, Past Relationship(s), Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-12
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 06:37:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1041541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Boyd Crowder picks up more than he bargained for with stolen cargo off a rioting prison planet.  Twenty  years and too many stars to count haven't dulled his feelings, but Raylan Givens isn't exactly the same boy he parted with on Harlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Whole of the Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [someotherstorm (rumbrave)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumbrave/gifts).



> Thanks to thornfield girl and scioscribe for beta duties and to someotherstorm for the fabulous prompt.

They chained him in the cargo bay, to the cargo which they'd stolen along with him.

In the tumult of the prison planet uprising, he'd been on his knees in front of Boyd. 

"Take me," he said, eyes desperate. He would die there. The planet had been abandoned to the prisoners. "You'll get ten times again the cost to feed me when you send for a ransom. More."

Space Marshals of his rank indeed did bring in a pretty penny. And Boyd remembered the fear in those eyes from when they'd been orphans on Harlan, set to work in the mines, digging up the black stone that powered all this space travel.

The whole of the universe really was a small place.

"I sent a message to your office, Marshal," Boyd said to him now, voice grim. "Though I suppose I can't call you that no more."

Raylan Givens did not look up. Boyd knew he was awake.

"Got back a laugh in the face. It seems you're not worth even that to them, let alone your ten times and more."

Boyd knew why he'd lied. The question had now become how Boyd would punish him for that lie. 

"What do you say, boy?" Boyd asked him, sneering. "Look at me."

Raylan lifted his eyes. They weren't afraid anymore. He did not speak.

Boyd tilted his head. The man was thin. Too thin. He had the scars of shackles, long worn, on his wrists. They weren't from Boyd's heavy towing chains. "You were a prisoner on that fucking rock, asshole." He should have seen it. "Tell me why I shouldn't throw you out the airlock like dead fucking weight."

Raylan blinked. He smiled. His eyes were wide, almost crazed, but sharp and knowing.

"What are you gonna be worth to me?" Boyd whispered.

No one moved.

"Let him up," he said said after several long moments of silence. Raylan always knew how to speak without words. "Pull those chains off him."

Dewey hesitated. "He looks mad, Cap'n. He's like to come at me--"

Raylan was looking straight at the boy, like he was hungering for his throat. Boyd said, "He don't got no weapons but his hands and he's too weak to fight for long. Stick your taser on him he gets riled up, son, and untie him or I'll drop you on your ass on Corbin and never look the fuck back."

Raylan said nothing still, but he was looking at Boyd again. He didn't look away as the pulled the chains off him, let them scatter, clanging loudly across the Lady's steel hull.

"See, he knows," Boyd said softly, more to Raylan and himself than Dewey or any of the other boys. "It's me and my Lady or death, Raylan Givens."

Raylan stood slowly, hiding pain. "I know it," he croaked in reply. He held his hands out, palm up. "Do what you want with me, Boyd Crowder."

He had more to say to this boy, more and more and questions too, but he sure as hell wasn't gonna say it in front of his men. He spun on his heel, growling over his shoulder, "My chambers." 

Boyd's chambers were small--cramped to anyone not used to the insides of a spaceship. 

They were standing very close together. Next to Boyd's bunk.

Raylan was shaking. He was exhausted. And starving probably. Boyd hadn't fed or watered him. He'd been too pissed off.

"I can't just take you on. You used subterfuge to get here. I'll be seen as weak. You won't be trusted."

"I know." Raylan's eyes were dark, dark as the mine. They'd been bright as a toothy smile the last time their paths had crossed. That had been on Lexington, after Boyd ripped off that bank on its moon. No one but Raylan thought he'd hide on-world.

It had been a close one.

"What the fuck did you do?"

"Nothing," Raylan answered, lifting his chin.

"Fuck you, nothing," Boyd shot back. "They don't throw you on Blackburn for fucking nothing."

"I saw something." His expression is carefully blank. This was his training. For interrogation. Boyd hated it. He wanted to talk to him.

"What did you see?"

The fear snapped back into Raylan's eyes in a flash. He shuddered violently. "No," he said. "They'll know if I tell you. They'll know--" He raised his hands, shaking still, to clutch at his head. "Don't ask me again. They'll--"

Boyd reached for him, unthinking, and he jerked back into the wall, shouting something incoherent.

"Fuck," Boyd swore. 

Raylan looked up at him like he didn't recognize himself. 

"Okay," he said, searching for a calm he didn't feel.

"They sent the Black Hands in for me. They put a bag over my head, Boyd. No one could speak."

The Black Hands, Jesus, Boyd thought, then turned his mind away. They could find out if you thought too hard about them. They would come and find out why. 

"Okay, Raylan. I won't ask again."

"I'm sorry, I--" Raylan stopped himself from speaking. He let his hands fall to his sides.

"How long were you there?"

Raylan blinked at him. "They only let some remember."

Boyd couldn't control his horror. It was plain on his face. "I saw you last ten years ago. You chased us off Lexington."

"After that, then," Raylan said, like the years were nothing. "Maybe not too long. I was still stationed there."

Boyd knew better than to ask again what he'd seen. If it was on that planet, or elsewhere. "My God, Raylan."

Raylan just blinked at him more.

"I don't know how I took you for a lawman. Like you were gonna get me a fucking ransom." Boyd shook his head. "Raylan," he said. He didn't know what else to say.

"I'm a good actor," Raylan told him, as if nothing else had been said since Boyd asked him his worth in the cargo hold. "I'm good with a gun."

Boyd's brows creased. His mouth was a thin line of sadness, regret. "Raylan."

Raylan tried to smile. It came out more like a grimace. "Boyd."

Boyd kissed him then, pressing too far forward, making it awkward, like it always was. Raylan didn't push back.

"Fuck, I'm sorry."

Raylan blinked at him again. "Why?"

Boyd wanted to ask, _who are you?_ "Did you like it or not?" It had been so long.

They were bunk mates on Harlan. Everybody knew, sooner or later you shared _everything_. There was no one else for you. Boyd had been surprised it didn't stop him from getting in the Marshals in the first place.

"I always liked it."

Boyd didn’t know what to say to that. His breath was heavy, fast, too much. “Raylan--”

And it was Raylan who moved forward this time, with a desperation that made Boyd think of the first time--the time they’d nearly died and needed to know they were still living.

Raylan pushed Boyd up onto his bunk. Boyd helped quite a bit, as Raylan’s arms were straining and weak. He pulled Raylan up too, all while their lips were locked, their hands clinging tight, huffing effort into each other’s mouths, like they needed the aid to breathe, to survive. 

They did that until Raylan made a soft keening sort of sound and pulled back, eyes wide again, like he wasn’t sure what was happening. He pressed himself up against the wall as Boyd sat up.

“What?”

Raylan didn’t speak, but his mouth was open like he wanted to.

Boyd leaned forward slowly, hands reaching out. He touched Raylan’s ankle--the part closest to him--grasping it lightly, letting his fingers curl loosely. “How long has it been since someone helped you feel pleasure, Raylan?”

Raylan frowned. “I-I can’t remember.”

“A long time then,” Boyd said, smiling softly, to reassure. “We’ll go slow.”

“I don’t want slow.”

“You need it.”

Raylan shook his head.

“Let’s take off our clothes,” Boyd said calmly.

Raylan was painfully thin under his threadbare prison smock. Loose and baggy, it seemed to take up more space than he did. If his face hadn’t been so haggard, his jaw more square, his eyes sharpened by the years, Boyd would have thought him just the same as when they were nineteen and they’d walked through the long white tunnel, out of the dark and to their new lives--the debt of their parents’ finally paid off.

They didn’t let them talk before they took the test, to decide their futures, their fates.

They weren’t allowed to make plans in the dark.

Raylan went to the Space Marshals and Boyd to the Army of the United Planets. He was only there three years--conscripted for life--before he went AWOL by hitching a ride on a pirating vessel.

He loved the life. It was better than anything he could have gotten, even if he’d had the stomach to work his way up in the ranks--the freedom was anyway. But he’d never loved anything like his nineteen-year-old self had loved this boy, now a broken man.

Raylan Givens had been his whole world in a universe as dark as the stone that they’d mined their entire lives.

“I want to help you, Raylan.”

“They’re gonna know what you’ve got me in here for, Boyd.”

Boyd shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. More’n half of them are off Harlan or Hazard, runners, like us. They know what this is.”

“What is it?”

Boyd jerked as if he’d been struck. “Don’t you dare ask me that.”

Raylan blinked again, shaking his head. “I-I think...I must have forgotten, Boyd. I know who you are. I just--”

There were tears pricking at Boyd’s eyes. He couldn’t let them fall. “I don’t understand.”

“They didn’t want me to tell. Know. But the Black Hands--their fingers are like hatchets and they don’t know where to look--”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Boyd hissed and Raylan startled. “I’m sorry.”

“No,” Raylan said, raising shaking fingers to his head. “You’re right. I just...I wanted you to understand, I-I’m sorry too.”

“If you don’t want--” Boyd almost climbed off the bed, but Raylan lunged forward and grabbed him by the arm.

“I do. I want...I don’t know why.”

“What didn’t--” Boyd broke off and started again. “What do you have left? Of...before?”

“I know things,” Raylan replied, almost defensively. “I know you, I--I remember the Marshals, a little. Faces, names, places. Sometimes being there, not always. I know Harlan. I know you. Maybe…I know how it was, but it just...it slips through my fingers. _What_ it was.” His face crumpled and Boyd turned back to him as he turned away, slumping. “That don’t make any sense, Boyd, I--”

Boyd catches his face in his hands. “No, it does.” He kisses him. “I can work with that. Do you want to?”

“ _Yes_.” Raylan kissed him then, as if to prove it. “It feels right.”

“It is,” Boyd said and moved to touch him. He kept it gentle, his palms flat as he laid him down. Raylan struggled, fighting the vulnerable position. Boyd leaned over him and smiled. “Hush now. I know what to do. You know we did this before.”

“Yeah,” Raylan breathed, taking it deep, calming.  
“What’s the clearest thing you remember?” Boyd’s lips were at his ear, his hands roaming.

“The bunk,” Raylan replied with no hesitation. “You and me on the top, where it was warmer. You whispered the stories from that class you were in…”

“Advanced Lit.” If you were leaving, you got school. If you were smart, they taught you more. Boyd hadn’t been docile enough to be so smart. They put him in the Army.

“We were so close…” he said, then closed his eyes, they rolled back white and Boyd called his name urgently. He frowned and opened them. “I-I lost it. Something else.”

“Shh,” Boyd said, like he used to, like Raylan might not remember. He slid his hand across Raylan’s flat stomach, he could feel the last rib, concave. He reached for Raylan’s cock. He was already so hard.

“Fuck.”

“It’s all right,” Boyd murmured.

Raylan made a sound like he didn’t think it was. It turned into a moan when Boyd took them both in hand. Boyd swallowed the sound as he pressed their lips together again, wrapping his free hand slow around the back of Raylan’s neck.

Raylan pulled away only to groan more and cling to him again, greedy, so close. He sounded like a parched man, finally given a drink.

“Fuck, Boyd.” 

He came a moment later. He put shaking hands, made steady with Boyd’s help, on Boyd’s cock, jerking just right as Boyd kept him close and came himself.

They kissed, hard, long, until Boyd forced himself away and grabbed a towel to wipe them off. Raylan was looking at him through half-lidded eyes when he turned back to the bed.

“I remember,” he said slow as molasses, “you didn’t like to do it that way ‘cause we didn’t have nothing but the sheets to wipe off with and they only let us wash once a week. I remember that.” He smiled so wide then, Boyd could practically see the bunk around them.

“Figured it might be too soon to put my mouth on your cock, sweetheart,” he murmured. They’d always called each other the sappiest shit when they were alone. “It’s only been an hour on top of twenty years apart.”

“And two days in your hold.”

“I was pissed,” Boyd said.

Raylan’s smile hadn’t gone away. “I knew you would be. I remembered that too.”

Boyd thought he might think about crying again. “That’s good, Raylan.” Boyd took his hand. 

He blinked his eyes slower now, exhaustion taking hold. “I loved you,” he said. “That’s what it was.”

Boyd nodded, not trusting himself to speak. “I’ve got to go check on the men,” he said. “Sleep now. You’re gonna be okay.”

Raylan was already out.

 

Everybody was in the mess. It was dinner time and Ellen May was shoveling out the tofu and canned veggies. She tried to give everybody something green at least once a week.

"You gonna blow him out the airlock, Cap'n?" Dewey Crowe called upon Boyd's entrance.

"No, I will not," Boyd said in a tone that signaled to everyone present that shit was about to get serious.

All attention turned to him, eyes wary, mouths shut.

"I do not take deception lightly, crew," Boyd began slowly. "I want you to remember that." He stepped further into the room and stopped at the head of the long mess table. They'd all been in the process of eating and Boyd regretted most of their food would grow cold while he was speaking.

"I will not be punishing Raylan for his transgression. Johnny, you remember when we ran across him those ten years back."

"Yessir," Johnny Crowder said, straightening in his seat. Johnny was his right hand man, had been with him since he got himself his Lady, had broken away from the clan, where they'd both gotten their name. Orphans didn't get them until they left the system.

"What did I tell you about him then?"

"That you knew him on Harlan. That he was smart and he wouldn't take too kindly to you getting one over on him." Some others at the table had been with him at the time as well, though most came later. They'd been a smaller operation then.

"All those things are true, crew. At the time I didn't not divulge the extent of my relationship with the Marshal, now former, because it had no bearing on those matters. We would still run because we would not be caught and live. Raylan would still try to catch us." Boyd paused again and looked them all in the eyes, one after the other. "Raylan was black-bagged shortly after our paths crossed and he's spent many years chained to that rock."

Devil, a decent shot but with only slightly more sense than Dewey Crowe, stood swiftly. "If they're looking for him--"

"Shut your fool mouth, boy," Boyd hissed. "If _anyone_ thought he was some kind of threat, he wouldn't have made it anywhere near us. He'd be dead and he isn't. He and I shared a bunk on Harlan and his mind's been broken. He'll stay and you all will leave him the fuck alone. He'll heal and when he does he'll work and if I hear anyone's bothered him, I'll throw that individual out the goddamn airlock. Do not test me, crew."

They stared at him, all wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

"Yessir," Shelby, the mechanic said first, and a chorus, dutifully, followed.

Boyd took the ship’s doctor, Helen, a trained midwife and medic, aside once everyone went back to their food. “You saw him down there,” Boyd said. “What does he need?”

“I’d be able to tell you better if you give me a closer look at him,” she answered crossing her arms. “But, from his weight and his height I’d say at least a couple days intravenous nutrition, maybe a week. And a bath. A real one. So we best dock somewhere we can stay for more than three hours.”

He nodded, absently, thinking whether Audrey’s would be best or--Helen laid a hand on his arm. He almost jerked away from her. His people, all people really, were not the physical kind. He met her eyes.

“He’ll need time, too, Boyd.”

Helen was the only crew member who got away with not calling him something other than his name.

“I know it.”

“He’ll need more,” she said.

“More than time?”

“Yes, but more time than you’re thinking. He’ll need what he needs. You can’t rush him.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“You still might. And this…” she hesitated, but motioned to their surroundings, “might not be best for him.”

Boyd’s lips formed into a hard line. “Helen, I just got him back, I--”

“I know. Just think about it. Talk to him. Ask him where he wants to be.”

 

Boyd took a tray carrying a big bowl of the Ellen May’s tofu gruel for him and Raylan to split in some fashion and an intravenous bag that Helen went to go fetch for him back to his chambers. Raylan woke, startled, when he shut the iron door behind him.

He blinked into awareness and relaxed upon seeing it was Boyd.

“Hey,” Boyd said.

“Hey,” Raylan replied.

“What were you dreamin’, babe?” Boyd asked, the old habit sneaking up on him. He winced. “Raylan, don’t--”

But Raylan smiled. “I dreamed the stars, Boyd,” he said, like he always did, back when they’d never seen them.

“I’ll give ‘em to you, Raylan.” 

He used to promise such outrageous things. Now, that they’d found each other again, when reunions like theirs were reserved for the most romantic of stories told in the bunks and the billets, it didn’t seem so improbable, so utterly unbelievable.

Raylan made room for him on the bed. “I’ll take ‘em, since you offered.” He grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> As you might be able to tell, this fic was heavily influenced by a little show called Firefly. Originally it might have well have been a crossover of some kind, until I added a few other details. I did not want to let that influence go unacknowledged, so there you have it. 
> 
> Also, if you are going to comment about an inconsistency or ask a detail-oriented question, I can't guarantee I'll respond or answer to your satisfaction. My motto going into writing for this prompt was "I want to think about it as little as possible." I did not spend a lot of time on world-building.


End file.
